Proven ETH mission statement retained
Last year there was a lot of discussion about a new mission statement for ETH. Now ETH President Ralph Eichler and the Executive Board have decided how to proceed.
The current ETH mission statement dates from 1996 and was due to be revised as part of the strategy development for 2012 to 2016. To that end, in 2013 a draft version was presented for consultation at ETH Zurich. Not only University groups such as the University Assembly (HV), the Lecturers' Conference (KdL) and the Personnel Committee (PeKo) but all members of ETH were able to take part in the debate. At the request of the Executive Board, a mission statement blog was set up which remained open for people's comments for seven weeks.
As a result of all the feedback, both constructive and critical, from ETH members, and the opinions of the University groups, ETH President Ralph Eichler has decided, in agreement with the Executive Board, to retain the existing mission statement. The number of core areas in which ETH Zurich offers study programmes has been amended. Now Humanities, Social and Management Sciences are listed instead of Sports and Military Sciences.
"The existing mission statement remains in effect. Feedback from the University groups and discussion with ETH members have shown that the university identifies more with the existing mission statement than with the proposed new one," said the President. At the request of the university groups, the new Executive Board will work on producing a new mission statement when it takes office.